It’s election season, which means the airways, radio waves, social media and corners are filled with campaign ads urging you to vote for this political candidate or that proposition. If you have made any political donations in the past, chances are your text messages and emails are also blowing up with political communications.
Many property owners get in on the action too. Political flags are flying, and campaign signs seem to be in many yards.
Political signs and displays invariably irritate neighbors with differing views and sometimes evoke absurd reactions. In communities governed by restrictive covenants, Complaints about neighbor’s political displays are often made to homeowners’ associations (“HOA”). HOAs sometimes try to intervene, but they risk violating the law if they overstep when it comes to regulating political displays.
Under Texas law, HOA wings are clipped so that they cannot prohibit political displays and campaign signs during election season.
Unlike most HOA related laws, the limitation on the ability to regulate political signs is not found in the Texas Property Code. Instead, a property owner’s right to display signs advertising a candidate or measure for an election are found in Sections 259.002(a) and (b) of the Texas Election Code, which reads as follows:
Sec. 259.002. REGULATION OF DISPLAY OF POLITICAL SIGNS BY PROPERTY OWNERS’ ASSOCIATION.
(a) In this section, “property owners’ association” has the meaning assigned by Section 202.001, Property Code.
(b) Except as otherwise provided by this section, a property owners’ association may not enforce or adopt a restrictive covenant that prohibits a property owner from displaying on the owner’s property one or more signs advertising a candidate or measure for an election:
(1) on or after the 90th day before the date of the election to which the sign relates; or
(2) before the 10th day after that election date.
The statute is clear that a property owner’s ability to display political signs is not unlimited. Nor is it permanent.
First, there is a window of time when political signs cannot be banned by HOAs. The window opens 90 days before an election and ends 10 days after the election.
There are other carve-outs that preserve an HOA’s ability to require signs to be ground mounted and to limit “a property owner to displaying only one sign for each candidate or measure.” See Section 259.002(c)
Subsection (d) of the statute clarifies that subsection (b) (quoted above) does not prohibit the enforcement or adoption of a covenant that prohibits a sign that:
(1) contains roofing material, siding, clarifies that subsection (b) paving materials, flora, one or more balloons or lights, or any other similar building, landscaping, or nonstandard decorative component;
(2) is attached in any way to plant material, a traffic control device, a light, a trailer, a vehicle, or any other existing structure or object;
(3) includes the painting of architectural surfaces;
(4) threatens the public health or safety;
(5) is larger than four feet by six feet;
(6) violates a law;
(7) contains language, graphics, or any display that would be offensive to the ordinary person; or
(8) is accompanied by music or other sounds or by streamers or is otherwise distracting to motorists.
Finally, subsection (e) reserves the right of a property owners’ association to remove a sign displayed in violation of a restrictive covenant that does not violate subsection (b).
Don’t let your HOA (or anybody else) trample on your First Amendment rights. But know, that the right to express your political views through yard signed may be limited if you live in a restricted community.
